James Lee Burke at Tangled Web UK

Page Updated: 04/02/2008

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James Lee Burke - Page 1

Jesus Out to Sea

15 Nov 07

Pegasus Descending

Crusader's Cross

In the Moon of Red Ponies

Last Car to Elysian Fields

About the Author (Photo (c) Deborah Feingold)

Bibliography

First British Edition Orion (2007)

Jesus Out to Sea
This powerful new collection of James Lee Burke’s short fiction ranges across landscapes that he has made his own, from rural Louisiana and Mississippi to war-torn Korea and a New Orleans ravaged by Hurricane Katrina.
Told with his trademark blend of lyrical prose and hard-eyed realism, they bring a host of extraordinary characters to vivid life: soldiers and prostitutes, nuns and children, musicians and gangsters, movingly exploring `the near certainty of tragedy to come and the smoldering embers of possibility in the ashes of blighted lives’ (Booklist).
Whether bittersweet evocations of childhood and a New Orleans that was `a song, not a city’, or pain-fuelled tales of wartime atrocities and the destruction of a modern-day Atlantis, these stories go right to the heart of the American experience, confirming James Lee Burke as one of its most profound chroniclers.
Acclaim for James Lee Burke
‘His books [are] sustained by lush Southern-Gothic prose, fast-swerving plots, deep roots in history and an intensity of character that any novelist might envy’ Independent
‘Burke is a genius - this novel, complex, deeply mystical and violent, is another triumph’ Guardian
‘James Lee Burke’s rage at what’s happening in his own back yard burns off the page. It’s good to feel the heat’ Literary Review
‘Simply one of the best crime writers in the world’ Susanna Yager, Sunday Telegraph
‘The book is not only the most complex of Burke’s works, it’s also without doubt his best novel so far. As always, he writes brilliantly, never putting a foot wrong in his descriptions and his dialogue … And the narrative is one of staggering intensity and power’ Evening Standard

First British Edition Orion (2006)

Pegasus Descending
Dave Robicheaux left his drinking days behind him many years ago, but he still feels guilt over a tragic event he wasn’t sober enough to prevent. Dallas Klein, a gambling addict and bar buddy of Dave’s when Dave was posted to Miami PD, was killed in an armed robbery he’d been forced to engineer. Two decades later, several incidents in Dave’s life in Iberia Parish link to those involved. First he meets Dallas’ daughter, Trish, who keeps odd company and is blackballed by the local casinos. Then the supposed suicide of a young girl appears to be connected to the man Dallas owed money to back in his Miami days.
Dave’s inability to let things alone gets him involved with two very powerful criminals, both wanting to protect their sons from the trouble they court, and both with the attitude of the privileged and white. When a young black drug dealer gets on the wrong side of the boys, tensions run high and there are more needless deaths - causing Dave to come to blows with the FBI, the DA’s office and a thug who has little regard for any life but his own.
Set in the summer of Hurricane Katrina, Pegasus Descending is dark with foreboding. James Lee Burke is writing better than ever.

First British Edition Orion (2005)

Crusader's Cross
In the summer of 1958, Dave Robicheaux and his half-brother Jimmie are just out of high school. Jimmie and Dave get work with an oil company, laying out rubber cables in the bays and mosquito-infested swamps all along the Louisiana-Texas coastline. They spend their off time at Galveston Island, fishing at night on the jetties, the future kept safely at bay, the past drifting off somewhere behind them.
But on the Fourth of July, change approaches in the form of Ida Durbin, a sweet voiced young woman who plays the mandolin. Jimmie falls instantly in love with her. But Ida’s not free to love - she’s a prostitute, in hock to a brutal man called Kale who won’t let her go. Jimmie agrees to meet Ida at the bus depot, ready for the road. But Ida never shows. Dave and Jimmie want to believe she skipped town, but they know, deep down, that Ida Durbin never got the chance to leave.
That was many years ago - before Dave Robicheaux began his long odyssey through bars and drunk tanks and skin joints of every stripe. Before the Philippines and Vietnam. Now, an older, well-worn Dave visits a man called Troy Bordelon, who wants to free himself of a dark secret before he dies. A bully and a sadist, he has a lot to confess to - but he chooses to talk about a young girl, a prostitute who he glimpsed briefly as a kid, bloodied and beaten. Dave realises he can’t let the past go. Ida’s killers are still out there. So he begins his journey into the past - back to the summer of 1958 and a girl called Ida Durbin.
'A fantastic novelist… so far above the prevailing standards of crime fiction that it is pointless to make the comparison' Daily Express
Acclaim for James Lee Burke
‘The book is not only the most complex of Burke’s works, it’s also without doubt his best novel so far. As always, he writes brilliantly, never putting a foot wrong in his descriptions and his dialogue ... And the narrative is one of staggering intensity and power’ Evening Standard
‘This is a lyrical and lovely novel . . . that takes Burke to the top of the crime writing tree, where he richly deserves to be’ Independent on Sunday
‘He writes explosively about crime and elegiacally about America. And he does so with style and passion enough to turn admirers into addicts. Burke is the only author guaranteed to make me bolt meals and lose sleep. No one else in the business is creating fiction like this’ Literary Review
‘Critics are running out of superlatives to describe the writing of James Lee Burke. He has been compared to a bewildering range of authors ... However no comparisons are needed. James Lee Burke is an American original’ Observer

First British Edition Orion (2004)

In the Moon of Red Ponies
A haunting new thriller featuring Texas Ranger turned lawyer turned crime fighter, Billy Bob Holland, set in the savage and beautiful landscape of Montana.
At the end of Bitterroot, rodeo cowboy Wyatt Dixon -’the most dangerous, depraved, twisted and unpredictable human being I ever knew’ - was sentenced to sixty years in jail for murder. Now, one year later, he’s out, due to the DA’s failure to disclose a piece of evidence. Among his many crimes, Wyatt once tortured Billy Bob’s wife when she was a cop. Dixon declares to Billy Bob that he’s a reformed character, and he needs his help in a venture to raise rodeo livestock. How can Billy Bob possibly believe him?
Meanwhile Johnny American Horse, whose worst offences till now have been drunkenness and a belief in his dreams, is caught carrying a gun. He tells Billy Bob he needs it for protection; in a dream he saw two men coming for him. Sure enough, those men Johnny saw are heading West, across the Great Plains to Montana, with Johnny as their target. Soon he’s in serious trouble with only one man to turn to, Billy Bob - and Billy Bob finds himself pitched into a complex battle that pits him not only against Wyatt Dixon, but against the very government he has sworn to support.
In the Moon of Red Ponies is James Lee Burke at his compelling best: a novel defined by stunning plot twists, terrifying violence and a cast of unforgettable villains - a combination that has earned Burke outstanding critical praise and a bestselling readership.
In Praise Of James Lee Burke
‘Critics are running out of superlatives to describe the writing of James Lee Burke. He has been compared to a bewildering range of authors ... However no comparisons are needed. James Lee Burke is an American original’ Observer
‘Anyone not familiar with the novels of James Lee Burke should go out and buy one this minute ... Together, his books amount to the most impressive body of crime fiction in America today. Indeed, many have gone further and argued that Burke’s work is too good to be categorised - that he writes great fiction, period’ Independent

First British Edition Orion (2003)

Last Car to Elysian Fields
Following his superb historical novel White Doves at Morning, America’s most acclaimed crime writer - winner of the CWA Gold Dagger and twicewinner of the Edgar Award - returns to Louisiana and Dave Robicheaux.
James Lee Burke is in top form in his latest page-turner steeped in the lush, unsettling atmosphere that his readers have come to expect. This time, Burke’s renowned Louisiana cop returns to the Big Easy in a spellbinding tale of conspiracy, passion, and murder. A rainy late-summer night finds Robicheaux in a New Orleans bar, about to confront the man who may have savagely assaulted his friend, Father Jimmie Dolan, a Catholic priest who’s always at the centre of controversy. But things in a Burke novel are rarely what they seem, and soon Robicheaux is back in New Iberia, probing a car crash that killed three teenage girls. A grief-crazed father and a maniacal, complex assassin are just a few of the characters Robicheaux meets as he is drawn deeper into a viper’s nest of sordid secrets and escalating violence that sets him up for a confrontation that echoes down the lonely corridors of his own unresolved past.
A masterful exploration of the troubled side of human nature and the dark corners of the heart, and peopled by familiar characters such as P I. Clete Purcel and Robicheaux’s old flame, the now-married Theodosia LeJeune, Last Car to Elysian Fields is vintage Burke - a moody, hard-hitting novel that goes the limit in its provocative blend of human drama and relentless noir suspense.

About The Author
James Lee Burke's mysteries combine brilliant storytelling with vivid descriptions of human and natural landscapes. His preoccupation with contentious issues, such as racial violence, class warfare and the history of the South, provide his novels with a knotty emotional and social terrain reminiscent of great novelists such as Chandler and Leonard. In all his novels, he depicts the squalid underbelly of American society and evokes a fallen world in which the gap between blacks and whites, the haves and have-nots grows ever wider.
Dave Robicheaux, the protagonist of ten previous Burke novels, is the laconic Cajun detective, who in the words of his creator, 'is always on the side of those who have no voice or power’. A Vietnam veteran and recovering alcoholic, Robicheaux is a deeply flawed but fundamentally ethical character; an errant knight who confronts the violence and perversion of Louisiana society in a quest for justice.
James Lee Burke has been writing since he was 19 and since then has published 19 books, won several awards, reached the US bestseller lists and successfully negotiated movie deals. But Burke's path to literary stardom has been as twisty and unpredictable as a Louisiana road. Having grappled with a lifelong drinking problem, he eventually managed to complete a 12-step programme in 1982 which he credits with rehabilitating his life and his career. Burke admits that his novels all share a strong dose of autobiographical realism, but says it's the feeling or experience that is autobiographical not the scene or the plot. Robicheaux is in many ways a metamorphosis of Burke's own character, sharing many of his personal beliefs and feelings. Both writer and character are also recovering alcoholics, live in Iberia and have daughters named Alafair!
James Lee Burke is the author of seventeen previous novels including ten featuring Detective Dave Robicheaux, and a volume of short stories. The Lost Get-Back Boogie was nominated for a Pulitzer Prise, Black Cherry Blues won the Edgar Award in 1989; and Cimarron Rose, Burke’s first novel featuring Billy Bob Holland, won the 1997 Edgar Award. In 1998, Sunset Unlimited won the CWA/Macallan Gold Dagger for Fiction. Tommy Lee Jones stars in and directed Dixie City Jam. In 2000 Purple Cane road was shortlisted for the Macallan Gold Dagger. James Lee Burke divides his time between Missoula, Montana and New Iberia Louisiana.

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Bibliography
N.B. dates and publishers in dark red indicate British First Editions. Dates and publishers in black indicate recent reprints.

Jesus Out to Sea (Orion, 2007) Nov 07

Pegasus Descending (Orion, 2006) (Dave Robicheaux)

Crusader's Cross (Orion, 2005) (Dave Robicheaux)

In the Moon of Red Ponies (Orion, 2004) (Billy Bob Holland)

Last Car to Elysian Fields (Orion, 2003) (Dave Robicheaux)

White Doves at Morning (Orion, 2003) Orion Pbk Nov 03

The Lost Get-Back Boogie (Orion Pbk, 2003) nominated for a Pulitzer Prize

Lay Down My Sword And Shield (Orion Pbk, 2003)

Jolie Blon's Bounce (Orion, 2002)

Bitterroot (Orion, 2001) Orion Pbk Jun 02 (Billy Bob Holland)

Purple Cane Road (Orion, 2000) Orion Pbk Jun 01 (Dave Robicheaux)

Dave Robicheaux Omnibus ( 2000) Orion Pbk Nov 00

Heartwood (Orion, 1999) Orion Pbk Jun 00 (Billy Bob Holland)

Sunset Limited (Orion, 1998) won the CWA/Macallan Gold Dagger (Dave Robicheaux)

Cimarron Rose (Orion, 1997) won the 1997 Edgar Award (Billy Bob Holland)

Cadillac Jukebox (Orion, 1996) (Dave Robicheaux)

In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead (Orion, 1993) (Dave Robicheaux)

Black Cherry Blues (Mysterious Press, 1989)

The Neon Rain ( 1987) (Dave Robicheaux)

Half of Paradise

To the Bright and Shining Sun

Two For Texas

The Convict and Other Stories

Burning Angel

Heaven's Prisoners

A Stained White Radiance Arrow Pbk 1993 (Dave Robicheaux)

Dixie City Jam

A Morning for Flamingos